Which DNA Test?
Scientist and forensic genealogist Roberta Estes has mapped out your choices depending on your research goals.
“DNA will solve it!” Not necessarily. It also takes a good bit of traditional paper trail research if the goal is to properly identify ancestral heritage. The research goal determines which DNA tests to take.
Ol’ Myrt here has some advice for those who:
haven’t yet taken a DNA test
are unsure which DNA test to take
find DNA test results confusing
Let me introduce you to Roberta Estes, a scientist and a forensic genealogist. She is the author of DNA for Native American Genealogy1 and The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal, and X-DNA.2 You’ll want to follow her blog DNAexplained - Genetic Genealogy to find answers to questions you didn’t know you had.
Check out her post “Which DNA test is best?” Here she discusses the big 3 testing companies, third-party analysis tools, ethnicity, adoptions, misattributed parentage, cousin matching, triangulation, Autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, Mitochondrial DNA, health, traits, and even freckles.
Most recently she published the Mitotree, the new tree of humanity based on the Million Mito Project, a collaborative scientific effort to rewrite the tree of womankind for all of humanity. Find out more about Roberta on her website’s About Me page at DNAexplained.com
Roberta is well-regarded by her professional colleagues, and appreciated by regular researchers like me for clarification of DNA subtleties. For me, DNA research is familiar, but I still require a bit of mentoring to be sure I’m drawing the right conclusions.
Happy family tree climbing!
Myrt
DearMYRTLE,
Your (not so) retired friend in genealogy.
Roberta Estes, DNA for Native American Genealogy, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2021. (https://www.amazon.com : viewed 3 Apr 2025).
Roberta Estes, The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA. Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2024. (https://www.amazon.com : viewed 3 Apr 2025).
Roberta is amazing. I learn something new every time she posts.